


Not So Alone

by PhinaRei



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Other, POV Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23253427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhinaRei/pseuds/PhinaRei
Summary: Crowley's emotional journey from the wall to the Ritz.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Not So Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I've spent more time than anyone should watching the third episode cold open and I just had a lot of feelings about the different reactions that Crowley had during each encounter. I felt the need to put it into words, so here it is.

To be perfectly honest, Falling wasn’t the worst part of Falling. If it had just been pain and fear followed by time to recover and then existence with beings around him that he trusted and were on his side, then Crawley would have counted it as well worth it. But once the suffering was over and the healing began, there was a deep, burning loneliness in the place where his awareness of Her had been. An emptiness in the core of his being that was new and horrible, worse after an existence without change or suffering up to that point.

Part of why he had chosen to spend time with Lucifer and his lot was because they had seemed to understand all of his doubts and frustrations and he had been able to feel like he belonged. He had felt disconnected from most other angels and even Her as he tried to sort through his growing awareness of More, but he had felt a kinship with the others on that side of things. The emptiness of loss was so overwhelming that all of those feelings were taken from him and everyone else during the Fall. Any connection from when they were whole, along with the ability to feel the more positive emotions coming from each other, and anything else that might have been comforting were ripped out alongside what it was that had made them angels. Instead, all they could feel was the doubt and suspicion that came from suffering and so Crawley lost the very thing that had tempted him to speak his questions aloud in the first place. 

He was alone.

Lucifer ruled with a rage born from feeling betrayed, leaving all of hell full of misery for the demons stuck there. It meant that Crawley was more than happy to go up to Eden when they told him to make trouble. He would do anything to get away from that empty sensation of being alone in such a crowded place. He hadn’t quite meant to cause as much trouble as he had though. Something more along the lines of getting the humans yelled at, not turned mortal and banished from their home. It picked at the scab of his own lingering sense of loss and made him actually feel like a monster for the first time. 

And then something even worse occurred to him... what if what he had done was a Good thing? If the Almighty had left the tree right there, maybe She had meant for him to convince them to eat from it. Had he done something that actually went with Heaven’s side of the Great Plan? He had no allies in hell, no one did, and if this had been part of what God intended for the humans, no one would protect him from Lucifer’s wrath. 

He slithered around the garden a bit, trying to rub the conflicting feelings off against the cool greenery or slither far enough away from them that they dulled. When he couldn’t quite manage to accomplish either goal, was just considering trying something a touch more drastic, he caught sight of the angel. 

Oh. That could work. Antagonize the heavenly bootlicker a bit and maybe burn up a bit of the extra emotion filling him. If the angel smote him after what he had done, then he would almost definitely be in hell’s less horrific graces.

Crawley made his way up the wall, practicing some petty barbs in his head as he approached. Changing form to something more matching the angel, he was pretty sure this one was named Aziraphale but his heavenly knowledge was fuzzy these days, felt downright bizarre after so much non-time as a snake. But as soon as he felt the breeze on his humanlike skin he realized he had missed this shape more than just a bit. Hell was no place for delicate bits though, and this shape had lots of them. He would just have to enjoy it while he was up here in the open air then.

When he looked over and saw the angel’s face, full of anxiety and doubt that Crawley could definitely sympathize with, all of his plans just went out the window. Oh. Maybe… maybe this angel wasn’t quite what he had thought. Maybe Crawley wasn’t quite as alone as he had felt since his Fall. Instead of trying to pick a fight, he started a conversation. Granted it took a couple of tries given how distracted the angel was. But once he seemed to get past his own anxious twisting and realized that Crawley had more interest in questions and talking than fighting, the angel actually turned out to be chatty. Maybe a bit pedantic in a charming sort of way. Well, just about anything would probably be charming after being in hell he supposed.

And then the angel told Crawley that he gave away his flaming sword. Yelled it, really, in a sort of panicked desperation. Before Crawley could even ask the why of it he told him, his voice a bit high and quite fast.He had done it because he was a soft bastard who hadn’t wanted the humans to suffer and die just because they couldn’t stay in Eden. When it came down to it, he was protecting them from the suffering that Crawley had tempted them into despite the fact that it almost definitely something heaven would frown upon. 

Good fuck. 

For the first time since his wings had burned in the sulfur, he wasn’t lonely. He did his best to soothe the fears that the angel was feeling, even if he wasn’t very good at it. He was still an angel. He couldn’t possibly be capable of doing the wrong thing if he was still an angel after the Fall. In the end it did seem to help a bit, as well as helping Crawley work the logic he was using around to dampen his own emotions. When the rain started and his brand new and very first friend lifted his wing to Crawley as he stepped closer, he felt the kind of belonging and warmth that he had known only minutes ago that he would never feel again. 

Maybe this would only last for the length of the storm, but he was willing to take it for as long as it was there.

~~~

It was a thousand years before Crawley felt it again. More than once he had told himself that it hadn’t been real, that he had only imagined feeling a connection to Aziraphale. He had never felt it with anyone else, not in hell or on earth where they had stationed him after the apple. Obviously he couldn’t actually have felt it and he had just been clinging to a comforting fantasy for the last millenium. Demons were too empty to feel anything so warm.

Then he ran into Aziraphale again. All it took was seeing the angel for the sensation to fill that cold space that had been hollowed out so long ago. A manic hope filled him. He couldn’t resist the bounce in his step as he moved to greet him or the urge to tease just a bit about the sword. It was so good to feel this unnamable something that it took a few moments for it to be ruined by the news of what was happening. 

If the angel could stand with heaven and the Great Plan while children died, then maybe this feeling wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe it was a sign the angel himself was corrupted. That something was wrong with him that made his company comforting to a demon like Crawley. It definitely couldn’t be the sign he had hoped that She hadn’t taken everything and that he could still feel some kind of happiness eventually. If he just waited long enough and found the right answers.

He walked away from that meeting with almost as many feelings as he had been running from in Eden. It felt like a nasty sort of trick, the kind that She seemed to enjoy for all of her “Love” and “Benevolence.” For a few hundred years, while the humans recovered their numbers, he felt a fierce pride in the fact that he had questioned and Fallen. Even the angel he had wanted to like was part of heaven’s meaningless cruelty, but not him. 

The pride didn’t last, not with the things that Hell sent him to do, but for a while he didn’t feel empty and it didn’t require anyone else. 

~~~

When Crawley met Aziraphale again, he was Crowley and a she at the moment. She was also hurting for the latest poor human that heaven was allowing to be murdered for the damnable Great Plan. She didn’t really intend to engage with Aziraphale this time, not really interested in being disappointed again. But Crowley was Crowley and letting things lie was beyond her. She really couldn’t resist circling around to his left and taking a verbal jab at him, daring him to defend this atrocity. 

And with just a few words, just as much the distressed tone he said them in, Crowley forgave Aziraphale. There was a bit of sass and distress as well and Crowley couldn’t help letting her hurt go in favor of letting the knowledge of his pain undo the worst assumptions she had made about him. No bootlicker, this one. He might obey, but Aziraphale didn’t do it with any kind of pleasure or even peace. 

There had been a feeling of betrayal stuck in her chest for centuries over him taking the only thing she had away from her. As he made it clear now that he was hurting over this, that he didn’t approve, and was quite scared beyond words of the consequences that could come just from that feeling, Crowley felt the doubt and pain start to fade. The warmth he had taken was coming back to her and she realized that he hadn’t ever meant to take it in the first place.

Instead of the hateful things she had intended to say to him, she changed direction and told Aziraphale about changing her name and showing the carpenter the world before he was hung up there. If hell asked, she would tell them it had been to tempt him to give up on sacrificing himself in this way. But when Aziraphale asked why she’d done it she told him the truth. That it was because he hadn’t been able to see much on his own during his time on earth, and now he was going to die. He deserved more. Now that she knew Aziraphale agreed, she was alright with telling him the truth of it. Sharing something real with him the way she had on the wall of Eden. She didn’t want to waste a chance to feel and share the connection they had now that it was back.

When it was done they parted ways silently, each caught in their own grief and questions, each unable to share that much just yet for their own reasons. 

But Crowley also left with a renewed hope. Perhaps she really wasn’t as alone as she had convinced herself that she was supposed to be. Not as long as Aziraphale was on earth too.

~~~

Rome wasn’t his favorite of the humans’ cultures. In a lot of ways it was brilliant and a shining example of what they were capable of. In others, it showed exactly the worst of their nature. He supposed that was an inevitable sort of dichotomy when you got too many of them together. Especially when they weren’t so busy trying to just survive that they didn’t have time to invent atrocities. It seemed like they were doing more of that the better they got at keeping themselves housed and fed. Hell was happy enough with it, but Crowley wasn’t so sure he wanted to see much more of it up close. 

Encountering Aziraphale here was unexpected for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it had been less than a century since Golgotha. Normally they didn’t cross paths and he had always assumed that it was intentional on the part of the angel. That being on the side of Good he avoided a demon like him unless he had no choice because the event they were at was too important to both sides. 

But he was either not trying to avoid him anymore or never really had been, because Aziraphale was the one who approached him at the bar while Crowley was trying to get alcohol into himself so he could forget about how horrid humans could be without demonic intervention. (His fault he supposed. Apple and all that.) 

Once he managed to calm down a bit and only snap at Aziraphale the once, they talked. For the first time in their meeting one another through the years, Aziraphale seemed to feel the connection that Crowley had come to dream about when he chose to sleep. Or maybe he just seemed more indulgent in general this time. Up until now the angel had always felt stiff and upright around him in a way that was appropriate for one of Her messengers. This time… He felt a bit different. Still Good and full of warmth, but also easily indulging in wine and talking about oysters and tempting Crowley. They were entirely new behaviors as far as their history was concerned. 

He wondered vaguely if Aziraphale was always like this when Crowley wasn’t around, or if it had to do with the way he had seemed to question things at the crucifixion. Either way, he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to distract himself from his day (really, he should have put more effort into making his outfit something that fit in at least so he didn’t have to deal with the looks when Caligula had already put him in a bad mood) and from his existence in general if the angel was keen on spending some time together. He let himself smile and enjoy what promised to be an interesting encounter with the one being in creation that he considered a friend.

He didn’t really know it then, but later he would think back to that day as the one that he stopped questioning his attachment to Aziraphale and just enjoyed it. And, when it was beyond him to deny it anymore, he would admit to himself that it was when he started to fall in love with the angel, just a bit. Maybe more than a bit.

~~~

Crowley saw Aziraphale more often after that. It went from every couple thousand years to at least once a century. Some meetings were better than others. In the early days most ended in Aziraphale getting upset with him for something or other, but as time went on more and more ended in long nights of drinking and talking. Crowley liked those nights. They were what he thought about when he felt loneliest and most miserable. They proved that suffering wasn’t the only left to him just because he was a demon.

It was just about five thousand years after humans and the apple that Crowley got a real excuse to see him regularly. He had proposed it plenty of times over the years but Aziraphale had always balked. The angel was still twitchy about it as he was about anything else new or forbidden, but finally he agreed to make both of their lives easier. Not to mention more interesting. Crowley called it The Arrangement. Aziraphale preferred not to call it anything when he could manage, as if not talking about it somehow decreased his responsibility in it all. Most of the time Crowley let him have it with a feeling of indulgent amusement.

If he were honest with himself, and he rarely was, Crowley’s motivation was almost entirely to feel whatever it was that Aziraphale inspired in him and had little to do with their work. His work for hell, his hobbies on earth, his little diversions and mischief were really nothing compared to a single interaction with his… with the angel. So he wasn’t exactly displeased that it often took some time and convincing to get Aziraphale to agree to each new transaction. Anything that meant even a single moment more with him was a win as far as Crowley was concerned.

Even after centuries Aziraphale was still usually overtly nervous and loudly insisted that they weren’t friends. That day watching that gloomy, deserted play of Shakespeare’s came to mind when he thought of it. Aziraphale had almost wound himself up in a knot insisting that they didn’t even know each other and Crowley couldn’t quite resist the amusement it built up in him standing right beside him as he stumbled over the words. The blasted angel hadn’t even moved away from him or pretended to stop looking to him for approval. He couldn’t even bring himself to be annoyed with him over that sort of foolishness. It was too endearing.

Now and then it was hurtful when Aziraphale was so vocal about his denials. Especially after the first few hundred years. But that mattered much less when he reminded himself that when it was just the two of them he would relax and let himself share all the bits of who he was that no one else got to see. Humans didn’t know he was an angel, a being of love and divine power. Heaven didn’t know that he was a hedonist, passionate about books, food, and all of the creature comforts of earth. Crowley knew both sides as well as the soft joy he got watching humans and that made him entirely immune (well, mostly immune) to all of the denials. 

And it wasn’t like he didn’t understand why it had taken so long for him to agree or why he had such a difficult time letting even humans in on their secret. Crowley had Fallen just for questioning. What Aziraphale was engaged in was a blatant exercise in disobedience if not outright treason. The two of them may have been forced to acknowledge that heaven and hell didn’t care about the details nearly as much as they had assumed centuries ago, but it didn’t mean that the threat of punishment wasn’t there if they actually were discovered. The angel had a point when he said that hell would probably destroy him if they found out. And, while Crowley wasn’t overly fussed about that so much, he was pretty sure that heaven would find some way to hurt Aziraphale just as badly. There was very little that scared him more than the idea of his… of Aziraphale Falling and feeling that howling void that came with Her total absence. There was no guarantee that he would find a way to feel this warmth the way Crowley had.

So through the centuries Crowley smiled through his only friend’s protestations and indulged him with anything he wanted. He fed him and did miracles just to please him and he waited for what he could give without pushing. It had taken five thousand years to agree to the Arrangement after all. He was sure that Aziraphale would eventually relax enough to call them friends. Or at least not deny it quite so intensely. It wasn’t as if Crowley didn’t have the time to give him. They weren’t humans after all. 

He would wait for his angel as long as he needed. 

~~~

Sometimes Aziraphale did things that made him suspect that he was getting closer. The idea that Aziraphale had actually been so unaware of what was going on in France that he had shown up in Paris dressed like that unintentionally bordered on laughable. Crowley didn’t believe it if only because Aziraphale preferred to avoid the misery and filth of wars unless given an assignment to influence them. His angel was a soft, fussy being after all. He wasn’t quite sure that Aziraphale had intended on ending up in the Bastille awaiting execution, but Crowley knew that he had to have been putting himself in a position to need intervention with plausible deniability just to get Crowley’s attention. 

Well, he supposed Aziraphale could have been capable of that kind of foolishness (giving away his flaming sword came to mind), but Crowley at least liked to think it was on purpose. The joy in his voice as he had said Crolwey’s name and the glee with which he proposed that they get crepes after Crowley freed him lended weight to the demon’s theory. Little things like that proved to him that Aziraphale really did enjoy Crowley’s company, even when he protested it.

They also showed Crowley that he had always been right about the angel. He genuinely managed to be both the wonderful comfort that Crowley had first thought and enough of a bastard that there must be something not quite heavenly about him. The combination just happened to be the perfect blend that made Crowley unable to do anything but become desperately devoted to him over the millenia. 

Soon enough they were fully in the clear, away from the Bastille and the nasty little executioner who had taken Aziraphale’s place (really, he should have threatened someone else’s angel if he wanted to avoid such unpleasantness). They had more time than usual to enjoy one another and it made Crowley’s heart soar in a way he had long since given up on stopping. They had gotten their usual negotiations and disclaimers out of the way back in the cell so they were free to just be themselves for a while. A rare treat for them both. 

It was one of those encounters that told Crowley that it was all worth it. For the future it showed him was possible as well as just the moment they had together now. 

~~~

Other times Aziraphale managed to leave him crushed and very nearly hopeless. After almost six thousand years the angel still found a way to think the worst of Crowley’s motives. It did more than sting for him to believe that Crowley was capable of destroying himself with the holy water he asked for. How could he still know him so little when he was the only one Crowley let see him?

Crowley didn’t feel that he could be blamed for lashing out at him the way he had. Really, the fact that Aziraphale accepted his lies about having other people and not needing him just added to the hurt. Thousands of years they had known each other and apparently he was still just a demon to him when it came down to it. 

All he could do when they fought like that was be glad that it didn’t happen often. It always left him stinging and as lonely as he had felt before they had met on the wall. More often than not it also led to Crowley having a good, long sulk and this time was no different. The better part of a century wasn’t the longest he had ever let himself indulge in such misery, but any amount of time always felt longer when he didn’t see Aziraphale. 

They were immortal though, so it wouldn’t last forever. They would see each other again, intentional or not, and make up. After thousands of years, Crowley had built up that much faith. Faith in this thing in his chest and in the angel who made him feel it. 

He just had to wait. 

He was really getting good at waiting, even when he wanted to rage about how alone he was for so much of it.

~~~

Normally Crowley had plenty of time to purge his own half of the emotional aftermath. Sometimes it would take a few days and sometimes a few decades. Eighty years was a bit much but he couldn’t quite bring himself to fully drop the betrayal he was feeling. Maybe it was because Aziraphale proved he didn’t know him. Maybe it was because it had been so long since they’d had such a real disagreement. Either way, he wasn’t actually done being upset when he heard that Aziraphale was working with spies.

At first he had a few petty thoughts about letting the angel get himself discorporated. The more he thought about that though, the more sick he felt at the idea of some human causing him that kind of pain. One solid image of his angel’s corporation cold and empty was enough to freeze away and shatter any bitterness left over from their argument. Aziraphale couldn’t be blamed for being what he was and, bless it, Crowley really wouldn’t have him any other way.

It was as he made his plans to go make sure that no one shot his angel it finally occurred to him that maybe this sort of feeling was why Aziraphale had been so upset and stubborn about the holy water request. He had spent so much time thinking that it was because Aziraphale was judging him too harshly that he had never imagined that his angel had been terrified of a universe without Crowley in it. 

Well, fuck.

The more he thought about it as he found out the details of what Aziraphale was up to, the more his heart warmed. So Aziraphale didn’t think that Crowley was a monster who would kill himself just to avoid losing. He had been afraid that he would lose Crowley. That said more about how much he valued their friendship than any of his ardent, public denials. Aziraphale was willing to make him angry and have him sulk (because he couldn’t pretend that Aziraphale didn’t know his moods well enough to have known what would happen) for decades in order to avoid losing him for eternity. 

He was cheerful if in pain as he entered the church. Not even Aziraphale thinking that he was involved with Nazis could really put him off or ruin his mood. Well, the fact that his feet were burning did make him a bit snippy over it, but he had said much worse to the angel and been forgiven so he didn’t let it worry him just then. And to be fair, he was more scattered than snippy, and Aziraphale didn’t really seem to mind it.

The whole thing was a bit messy and Crowley only remembered certain parts in detail later thanks to how distracting such persistent, low grade pain could be. Something about Aziraphale getting used to another name change and something else where he noticed the holy water. The thing that stuck with him most vividly was that when he called Aziraphale his friend, the angel didn’t deny it. For the first time in their long, long lives, Aziraphale didn’t sputter and deny him when someone else was present. 

Alright, so the humans were Nazi spies who were about to die, but it still counted if you asked Crowley. Aziraphale had allowed a declaration of their friendship to stand. Even better, when Crowley saved his books Aziraphale looked at him like he had just told him that the stars he helped to create had been just for him all along. All in all, Crowley had never been quite so happy as he was that night. The warmth he felt around Aziraphale felt like it didn’t just fill his chest anymore but overflowed to every inch of his being. He came very close to being overwhelmed by it when his angel let him give him a ride home, but he managed to keep on the smooth front long enough to accomplish it and to enjoy a bottle or two of wine with him after.

If he went back to the church in the dark and dragged home that silly bird statue as a reminder of the best night of his existence to date, no one needed to know about it but him. 

~~~

Crowley might be a complete idiot now and then, but he generally knew what he was doing when he worked up one of his plans. It wasn’t any kind of coincidence that he organized his holy water caper in Soho. Aziraphale had been more than a century and a half now, and Crowley knew he had enough connections to hear about some well funded and overconfident criminal planning something in his neighborhood. 

Not to mention the fact that Crowley had based himself walking distance from his angel’s shop.

It wasn’t his fault. The night at the church had Crowley walking on air for years and he couldn’t help but want to see Aziraphale again now that they were on such good terms. Especially now that Crowley was fairly certain that he understood his angel’s feelings regarding him and their friendship.

He wasn’t entirely sure when he started planning whether he was seriously trying to get holy water or if he was exclusively looking for Aziraphale’s attention. To be honest it wasn’t all that important to him if he knew one way or the other. What he did know was that he hadn’t expected for Aziraphale to personally present him with a tartan thermos of the stuff. (Well. The tartan aspect was unsurprising. The angel had become obsessed with the stuff the moment he had first seen it.)

After thousands of years of limiting what he did for Crowley to what was necessary or at least deniable, such a blatant act of treason against heaven felt like Aziraphale taking a giant step towards him. His heart stopped when he realized what Aziraphale was handing him, only to race as the reality set in. 

For the first time in centuries Crowley pushed. His words might have been calm, but for them he might as well have been begging Aziraphale for more. When his angel proposed that they one day do things that sounded an awful lot like human courting, he gave one last, nearly desperate, offer to take him anywhere he wanted to go.

“You go too fast for me, Crowley.”

On the one hand, the words were the most agonizingly clear rejection that Aziraphale had offered in years. On quite the other hand… Well, he hadn’t said that Crowley was pushing in the wrong direction. Just that it was going too fast for him. 

It was the closest that Aziraphale had ever come to saying out loud that he felt the same whatever this was that Crowley did. After nearly six thousand years Crowley finally had words from Aziraphale’s lips that gave him real hope. Hope that he was truly not deluding himself or alone. Hope that the joy and warmth of Aziraphale’s company could be a constant one day. Hope that Aziraphale could love him the way he had come to love his angel.

Crowley stared at the thermos when Aziraphale got out of the car. It would take a while to parse all of these emotions, but that was okay. Just fine with him. He had enough to keep him from feeling any kind of empty while he waited for his angel this time.

~~~

Apocalypse. If it was averted, should it still be called the apocalypse? Or was there some other word that worked better? Not that Crowley had any intention of even mentioning it once this was fully resolved. Which, in their favor or against it, that would happen soon. 

They had failed spectacularly at being the ones to stop the end of the world, but it had been stopped anyway. The two of them had spent the last eleven years focusing on the wrong child and most of the last week wasting time on foolish arguments but somehow the world was still turning. Crowley would probably be far more upset about all of it if he weren’t completely exhausted and relieved that his angel was corporeal again and at his side. 

And wasn’t that surreal beyond the telling of it at the moment? On the one hand, it felt entirely normal to be sitting together while they drank wine and went over the clusterfuck of it all. On the other hand, it was the first time in six thousand years that the two of them were together, in the open, fully outed to their respective (former) bosses, and without any obligations to heaven or hell. Apparently Aziraphale found it just as unbelievable and Crowley had to gently remind him of the reality of their situation when the angel did his usual side step of an invitation.

But after the reminder it all seemed to sink in for them both. The reality that they no longer had the threat of discovery to fear or their sides to blame for any hesitations they had. Anything they did or said, anything that was between them, was only between them from here on out. Neither of them seemed to know what to do with that at first as the bus appeared and they got on silently. He was pretty sure that it surprised both of them equally that it was Aziraphale who was the first to take advantage of their new world order. As they sat down his angel reached and took Crowley’s hand, holding onto it firmly and staring straight ahead.

Six. Thousand. Years. Hope and pining and frustration and pain. Every significant emotion and moment in his entire existence felt like it was condensing into that one touch. The first fully unambiguous touch that had ever been knowingly and intentionally shared between them. And it had been Aziraphale to initiate it.

Crowley forgot to breathe for a moment (not that he actually needed to but humans were funny about that kind of thing) before he took a slow breath and gently squeezed Aziraphale’s fingers. It was the smallest and most simple of gestures in the grand scheme of things, but for them it was bridging a gap the measure of a canyon and it changed everything. 

The touch stole his attention for the entire bus ride. While they talked and planned for what came next it took more effort than he was used to for him to ignore the way his hand still tingled a bit. But then it was what he thought about when the idea of sending Aziraphale into hell in his shape filled him with fear. The memory of how it felt to have their fingers twined together kept him from breaking character and ruining their plan in heaven when all he wanted to do was tear into Gabriel. He found that he could endure just about anything as long as he had the promise of that gesture to hold onto.

They made it through their trials, back to their bodies, and before long found themselves at the Ritz. It wasn’t the first time they had eaten here, but it was the first time that they did it in the way he felt that Aziraphale had meant it back in 1967. Aziraphale looked back at him with just as much focus and adoration as Crowley had looked at him for centuries. The unspoken things between them didn’t hurt or feel too tight, they just felt like they were eagerly waiting for some privacy to be said. It was the first time they had eaten here when they both knew that they were free to leave together without fear and they were both obviously a bit giddy about it in their own way. 

The meal now took its place as the best memory of his existence and as they enjoyed the time together he got the sense that every day from here on would take the place of the one before it as the happiest he had ever been. The warm feeling that came from being with his angel felt like it was finally there to stay and he couldn’t imagine a world where that didn’t mean finally having found the happiness together that he had been dreaming about since the wall. 

When Aziraphale told him he was a little bit of a nice person, and looked so pleased with himself when Crowley told him he was enough of a bastard worth knowing, Crowley felt as if his heart would burst. He held out his champagne flute and gave the only toast he could think of that came close to expressing the overwhelming things he would have to wait just a little bit longer to say out loud.

“To the world.” 

The emotion Aziraphale didn’t bother hiding on his face and in his voice as he returned the toast told Crowley that his angel understood. Maybe he always had. Eventually Crowley would get the chance to ask. That and a thousand other things that had been silent between them. 

For now though, he was content to wait. He had always waited for his angel and would have waited for an eternity if he had to. One more meal to wait through was nothing compared to all of that and everything that they could finally have together. So he sipped his champagne and smiled at his angel, enjoying the first meal of their new life together.


End file.
